SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)...
Last night’s WWE Monday Night Raw on USA Network drew a 1.90 rating for live and same-night-DVR viewership. That is down from last week’s 1.99 rating and the lowest rating since Oct. 31, 2016.
The dropoff from the first to the third hour was 410,000, well above the 246,000 average dropoff and the biggest since Feb. 7.
First hour viewership was 2.82 million, second hour 2.845 million, and third hour 2.42 million.
The 2017 average is 2.20 million. The ten week rolling average is also 2.20. So this week’s rating is well below the WrestleMania and Superstar Shake-up stretch in March and April.
Raw last night went up against the Golden State Warriors eliminating the Utah Jazz from the NBA Playoffs and the Washington Capitals crushing the Pittsburgh Penguins to tie their NHL playoff series 3-3.
One year ago, Raw drew a 2.26 rating.
(Keller’s Analysis: Raw drew a rating under 2.0 eight out of ten weeks last fall from Sept. 12 through Nov. 14. It appears WWE is headed toward another run of sub-2.0 rating until after Memorial Day as they enter a season including Brock Lesnar’s return and eventually Summerslam hype.)
NOW CHECK OUT LAST WEEK’S RAW RATING: Raw Rating: First sub 2.0 rating of the year, big drop-off in third hour (w/Keller’s Analysis)
The year-over-year drop is quite significant.
A year ago, on 9 May 2016, the Raw three hour viewership was 3.345, 3.356, and 3.013 millions, for the three hours.
And there were NBA playoff games last year too, and they also were the top cable draw then.
Raw dropped roughly a half million viewers over one year.
That is significant.
Can’t help but feel that putting Brock and Goldberg up as being on a tier above the rest of the cast, then having Goldberg retire having only put over Brock, AND at the same time Brock disappear completely from television with the top title… doesn’t do wonders for the show. Makes it feel like it’s just the B team running around in different combinations each week, reinforced when the B team come to the ring to complain about Brock and end up settling for a squabble about the IC title instead and apparently forget about Brock and the Universal title entirely. The Strowman injury isn’t going to help, either. Raw doesn’t look like must-see TV right now.
Surely they have to at least do a Heyman promo rather than just having the Universal Title and the champ off TV, not taking challenges, not doing anything, with no word as to why he’s not defending the title.